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Amador County is considered the heart of the Motherlode in California because of its ever-so-rich gold mining history

by | Aug 6, 2024 | Time Travel

– Time Travel Tuesday –

August 2024, From the Amador Ledger Archives

Go back in time with us as we dive into the Amador County newspaper archives from the late 1800’s and throughout the 1900’s and see what they were saying about the kaolin clay deposits here in the Ione area, and how they still relate to us and our operations today!

– The back story – 

Amador County is considered the heart of the Motherlode in California because of its ever-so-rich gold mining history where the precious commodity was discovered in abundance back in the gold rush era in the mid 1800’s. Hundreds of thousands of people flocked to this area in hopes of striking rich. What also was discovered, were other high-value minerals, especially in the city of Ione. You guessed it, kaolin clay was one of those.
Purebase thought it would be interesting to tie in our mineral history from hundreds of years ago and show our audience just how long these deposits have been utilized by locals and beyond for hundreds of years. Once a month, we will show you first-hand newspaper excerpts from the Amador Ledger newspaper that has been in existence since 1855 and is still fully functioning today, now called the Ledger Dispatch.
Take a look at this excerpt from the August 11, 1927 issue of the Amador Ledger. It highlights a “new clay industry” in Ione, and mentions that “this deposit is the only commercial deposit discovered in California.” Almost a hundred years later, it still is the only commercial kaolin deposit of its size discovered in California!

The excerpt goes on to describe that the “clay as found is mixed with sand and requires commercial processing before it is of commercial quality.” The same operations still stand today that the silica and heavy mineral sands are stripped from the clay using a density separator plant before the kaolin clay is sold into its specialty markets. It then says the plant has a capacity of five tons per day, a miniscule blip of what is produce today!

The front page of the August 11, 1927 issue of the Amador Ledger newspaper, where the above excerpt was clipped from.